“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Building B

The building was erected in two stages, after 1955, as the Polytechnic Institute, in the architecture of the Socialist Realism. Today it hosts three faculties (Economy and Business Administration, Biology, Geography and Geology), the “Grigore Cobălcescu” Mineralogy Museum on the second floor and a Collection of Geographical Instruments in the third-floor lobby. The statuary “Youth” (1959), a work of the sculptor Marcel Guguianu that represents two lovers, can be found in the middle of the University Park. In 1963, the student dorms Codrescu and Pușkin (today, Titu Maiorescu) were inaugurated nearby, along with the “La Balenă” (whale) pool, a bohemian meeting place. This is where a subversive protest of female students took place toward the end of the communist regime, in February 1987, as a response to harsch living conditions. (PHOTO : Mihai BULAI)